What Are The Real Costs Of Being A Musician? Eleanor McEvoy Helps Us Find Out.

Waterford, Ireland / WLR

November 22, 2017 12:44 pm

How much do you think a musician makes? The image of rock stars jet setting around the world in their private planes seems antiquated today in the age of Spotify and YouTube with artists now making a pittance per play on streaming platforms.

Research from Deloitte and IMRO released last week confirmed that nowadays artists are having to find new avenues to make money from their music. The research concluded that the Irish music industry generates €700 million per year.

Singer Eleanor McEvoy appeared on Déise Today to discuss how the music industry has changed and what effect new technology has had on the music industry.

Speaking on the issue of royalties Eleanor said, “when people hear the word royalties they automaticaaly think you’re making a fortune but the reality is it could be 0.0000000001 of a euro”.

When asked about how she thinks technology has changed how musicians make money she thinks that musicians are being treated unfairly by streaming platforms such as Spotify and Youtube, with most of the companies keeping most of the revenue generated by artists music and only paying a tiny fraction to musicians.

Eleanor also raised the issue of the fact that companies such as YouTube monetize videos through advertising and use an artist music to draw people to their side then selling them advertisements and users data on their online habits to other companies generating large sums of money, all while paying an infintessimal amount to those creating the content in the first place. She states, “We’re happy for you to make money off the back off our songs, maybe just pay us a bit more fairly?”

She also points out the overall positivity of the report saying that “this just proves to the government that they are seeing returns on their investment in the arts in Ireland and that for every €1 they are putting in they are getting €2 back.”